FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting Podcast

The FRIENDS podcast features discussions on issues of the day, interviews with broadcasters, speeches and even opportunities for you to become involved in FRIENDS' campaigns.

Subscribe:

 RSS

Podcasting FAQ's:

What is a podcast?

Podcasting is a method of publishing audio and video files to the Internet and allowing individuals to subscribe to a feed and receive new files automatically.

Do I need special software?

Yes, you will need podcast software on your computer. Generally the programs are free and easy to use. Here are three of the most popular:

iTunes
Juice
Doppler

Additional programs can be found at podcastingnews.com.

How do I subscribe to the FRIENDS podcast?

The subscription process will be different for each podcast application.

If you have iTunes you should simply have to click this link.

In other software you will need to add the Friends feed by copying and pasting the link below:

Do I have to download every podcast?

No, once you have subscribed to the FRIENDS podcast the latest edition will automatically download in your podcast software whenever it becomes available.

June 17, 2008

Mar 15, 2008

July 10, 2007 - Gareth Lewis and Audrea Lim, the 2007 Dalton Camp Award winners, read their essays.

June 19, 2007 - Interviews and commentary on the mega media merger between CTVglobemedia and CHUM Ltd.

Mar 14, 2007 - FRIENDS Presentation to the Heritage Committee on the role of the CBC in the 21st Century

Jan 5, 2007 - FRIENDS on Report on Business Television's SqueezePlay

Dec 7, 2006 - FRIENDS presentation to the CRTC on over-the-air television

Sept 22, 2006

Aug 29, 2006 - Conversation with Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbisias on the proposed takeover of CHUM by Bell Globemedia

Jun 9, 2006 - The Dalton Camp Award winners read their essays

Jun 1, 2006 - Dalton Camp Award Video, a seven minute video communicating the story of the award

Canadian radio stations, with the exception of the CBC and SRC’s national services, are locally-oriented.  They are owned by Canadians, focus on local news and advertising, and include a significant amount of Canadian content on their playlists.  Rather than being a liability, this approach appears to be working: Canadians spend almost as much time listening to the radio as they do watching television.

For example, in 2001, Canadians listened to an average of 21.7 hours of radio per week. Figure 4.2 shows the breakdown of this figure by age and gender.

At the same time, Canadians watched an average of between 22.1 and 26.1 hours of television per week. The variation in estimates is due to the methods used for measuring audience numbers.

Canada’s Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (BBM) uses a system whereby volunteers keep a diary of what channels they watched, when they watched them, and for how long. The estimates obtained by this method may be lower than the actual figures, because diary users can make mistakes when trying to recall television watched several hours or days before.

Nielsen Media Research, by contrast, uses a “people meter” attached to a selected number of television sets, which keeps track of when the television is on, what is being watched, who is watching, and when he or she changes the channel. The estimates obtained by this method, however, may be higher than the actual figures, because viewers frequently leave the television on when they are out of the room or concentrating on another task.

Figure 4.10 below shows the average weekly viewing hours calculated using both methods between 1995 and 2001. The actual figures are likely somewhere in between.

It is useful to examine Canadian television audiences according to what they are watching. Figure 4.8 below shows the relative audiences for Canadian and foreign programming in the English-language system, and Figure 4.9 shows the same numbers for the French-language system.

It is helpful to look at these figures alongside Canadian content requirements. The CRTC uses the Canadian Audio Visual Certification Office (CAVCO) points system to determine Canadian content, and then specifies the amount of CanCon that must be broadcast. The current guidelines are shown in Figure 5.2 below.

It is also helpful to compare the relative audience sizes for Canadian and foreign programming with the amount broadcasters invest in each category. Figure 8.24 below shows private broadcasters’ total expenditures on both types of programming between 1993 and 2002.

Spending on Canadian content has risen slightly, while spending on foreign programming has almost doubled. Because Canadian content draws lower audiences, broadcasters use revenues from cheap foreign programming to underwrite the costs of producing homegrown shows. With the advent of satellite TV and an increasing reluctance on the part of US broadcasters to sell shows north of the border, however, this cross-subsidy model is threatened.

In addition to the drastic increase in foreign content spending, there have been other dramatic changes in private sector broadcasting over the past decade.

   As Figure 8.16 below shows, there has been significant growth in the specialty/pay sector since 1996. Channels such as TSN, The Weather Network and the Comedy Channel have exploded in popularity, and often broadcast more Canadian content than conventional stations.

 And as figure 11.3 at left shows, levels of media concentration in the Canadian broadcasting system have increased dramatically. Fewer owners control a larger percentage of Canada’s television stations than ever before. 

Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC, has been under intense pressure from the private sector and the federal government.

Figure 6.1 at left shows Canada’s per capita funding of the CBC compared with the funding allocated to national public broadcasters in other countries. Canada ranks toward the bottom of the list among OECD countries.

This level of funding has also been dropping since the early 1990s. Figure 6.12 below shows the level of federal funding for the CBC since 1990, both in current dollars and in constant dollars adjusted for inflation. Funding in current dollars dropped 4.5 per cent over the period, while funding in constant dollars dropped 20.5 per cent.